That Ref Scandal Thing

1. As Frank DeForde said this morning on NPR, the thought that a single rogue ref could bring down the league is ridiculous. Let’s not blow this out of proportion. In 1919 8 players successfully fixed the World Series. The next year Ruth hit 54 home runs and baseball was healthier than ever.

2. As Stern noted, there are rogue cops, rogue CIA agents… so it’s not surprising at all that there is a rogue NBA official. But that’s not the problem.

3. The REAL scandal in the NBA is the overall quality of the officiating. It’s not the one guy or small handful of guys who are dishonest. It’s the MAJORITY of the officals who can’t call a game properly. NBA officials take the games away from the players and turn them into whistle-fests run by martinets. The calls are inconsistent, the favoritism shown to “name” players is rampant…. I could go on for an hour on this topic.

4. So it will be interesting to see how this plays out. If Stern uses it significantly to improve the quality of the officiating, then this was a GOOD thing. If not, it’s just a red herring to divert our attention from what Bill Simmons quite correctly called the “elephant in the room.”

So even if it’s a small handful of rotten apples, it’s not going to bring down the league. In fact, I hope they find 3 or 4 dishonest guys, and maybe a player or two. That will motivate Stern to make even greater efforts to clean up the officiating. He can start by firing that incompetent boob Stu Jackson, who is in charge of the officiating.

Can someone shed light on this story for me:

I know he had a gambling problem, but does anyone know why he started to throw games? Was he behind on payments to bookies? Was his family threatened? What is the story behind the story?

I think there is a lesson here about adictions. Nobody wakes up one day and says that they want to throw basketball games for money. Typically you end up doing stuff like this because of another problem. Like trying to support a habbit or through blackmail etc.

Help?

I really dont want 3 or 4 guys brought down because the repurcussions for every nba record in the last 3 years at least comes into question not just one series of games , we are talking about whole seasons here Brick.

Shoeless Joe Jackson has nothing on this.

Furthermore if these guys affected the win/loss records that also affects the lottery and how in turn draft picks..

What this dishonest official did probably had as much impact on the outcome of games as the blatant tanking we saw last season from at least three teams, including the Celtics. Since when did we become so holier than thou?

The one exception would be game 3 of the Suns-Spurs series, because that was the playoffs. But game 3 was an atrociously officiated game, and the two “honest” guys on the crew were almost as bad as the alleged crook.

The ongoing scandal in the NBA, and one which calls into question whether or not EVERY SINGLE GAME PLAYED IN THE LEAGUE is being decided on its merits (to use Stern’s catchphrase) is the overall shoddy quality of the officiating.

I love how Simmons repeatedly blames low ref salaries for inviting this kind of scumbag behavior.

Daughty (or however you spell his name) made $260,000 last year. I don’t even think I need to make a point …

I wonder what Sir Charles has to say about all this.

I disagree with a lot of what Brick says above, but this point really cuts to the heart of the matter:

3. The REAL scandal in the NBA is the overall quality of the officiating.